


Sleep away the light

by fingerless (antlover)



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bad Homelives & Some Mommy Issues, Best Friends, Late at Night, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 11:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17406434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antlover/pseuds/fingerless
Summary: Anxious and hollow, but strangely at ease, Hyungwon looks at Hoseok with tired eyes. The purple LED light makes him appear alienish, looking like a Hoseok that’s not really Hoseok, but he is still beautiful, still so handsome, and Hyungwon still wants to kiss him.





	Sleep away the light

**Author's Note:**

> title is from New Scream by Turnover.  
> ive been in an awful slump of a writers block for like four months and the original intention of this silly little thing was to write something that feels, well, like me. turns out i cant do that. so this is just something & i hope u like it despite it being sorta vague and ambiguous.

**One.**

 

Hyungwon exhales into the midnight air and a light gray cloud enters into his vision for a brief, fleeting second before vanishing into the view in front of him. He sighs. The dimness of the parking lot corner he’s sitting at gives him enough comfort to feel, well, comfortable and at calm. Although he’s a bit unsure whether Hoseok will notice him whenever he’ll arrive with his bright headlights and a loud engine. Hyungwon takes another desperate drag of the cigarette he’s holding in his trembling hand. It’s not even cold.

  
It’s a little silly, to sit in front of a sad-looking bush in ratty ripped jeans and dirty t-shirt, trying to look cool all meanwhile being painfully aware of how pathetic he knows he is coming off as. He’d rather put a smile on his lips and go stand before the bright lights of the 24h grocery store, not stink of smoke and whatever piss-vomit-shit mix of an odor he’s always carrying. He’s gross. Hyungwon feels gross. Another drag. He takes after his mother in ways he rather wouldn’t. Thanks for the nicotine addiction, mother, thanks a lot. The feeling of excess ash falling on his knees feels familiar and homely. He hates it.

 

The loud roar of a car pulling up to the parking lot is enough to pull him out of his strange but ill self-pity. It could be anyone, technically, but it’s more than likely that it’s Hoseok so Hyungwon jumps onto his feet. He drops the cigarette on the ground, stomping over it with the heel of his sneaker. He should quit. It’s easier not to.

 

“You didn’t wait for long, did you?” Hoseok half asks-half yells at him after he has pulled his door open.

 

“Nope,” Hyungwon chuckles, taking lazy steps towards him. It’s a surprise how his car is still functioning, considering how it’s held together by duct tape and God knows what-lifehacks.

 

“Good,” Hoseok grins as a response and walks towards him to meet him in the middle. Hyungwon feels a bit bad as they hug—he must smell bad, feel sticky, the summer is always too humid. But Hoseok, kind, sweet Hoseok, doesn’t comment on anything and just squeezes him tight. His arms are strong, warm, and selfishly, Hyungwon wants the time to stop there. It’s pathetic, really. Disgusting, too. But that’s love.

 

Love? Friendship, affection, whatever. The parking lot feels like another planet far away, eerily quiet with only few cars on it, and the two of them are untouchable.

 

“Let’s go inside,” Hyungwon mumbles under his breath, glancing at the gum stained asphalt. Hoseok doesn’t remove his hand from his shoulders as he jostles him towards the entrance of the store.

 

The fluorescent lights welcome them in with uneven flickers. It’s a strange place to be in. Everything is rather strange, always, so perhaps it’s just a Hyungwon thing.

 

“How was work?” Hyungwon couldn’t think anything more boring to ask but it falls from his lips before he can come up anything else. It’s colder inside than it’s outside. He barely feels like a person, looking down at his sickly coloured hands as they walk past the counters to get lost in between the aisles.

 

“Shit. Wanna quit. Absolutely nothing new. The customers are insane. My coworkers are worse.”

 

“Mmh, and you’re the worst. Sounds fun.” They pass the cereal boxes, bright and saturated that it almost hurts his eyes. Hyungwon reaches for Hoseok’s arm, closing his fingers around it and tugging it closer to his face to smell the back of his hand. The scent of grease is obnoxious. It’s odd how Hyungwon didn’t pay any attention it outside, but perhaps his own insecurities were too distracting. What’s new. Hoseok lets out a noise that sounds both like a squeal and a gasp.

 

“Don’t,” Hoseok feigns a shocked tone, “sniff my hand, _you weirdo._ ”

 

Hyungwon lets out a laugh, letting go of him and taking a few steps forward to walk in front of him, a grin on his lips he knows looks strange. He has a weird face. The kids in middle school used to draw odd shaped blobs with faces on the corners of their math notebooks and told Hyungwon the creatures looked like him. Like—like melted playdough. Like squished Blu-Tack.

 

Hoseok just reaches out and taps his cheek with his open palm, shaking his head.

 

“But how was _your_ day, Hyungwon?” Hoseok asks with a wide smile of his own. Oh, so irresistible, how could Hyungwon refuse him? With every gram of his soul. He tries his best, at least.

 

Hyungwon turns past a corner to another aisle, stopping before the colourful cartons of juice, trying to spot the shades of yellow and orange. Ice tea, he thinks, ice tea will be good.

 

“Fine,” he says as he recalls his mom passed out on the couch, the piles of laundry unwashed, dirty, stained. He thinks about the cup of coffee that tasted mostly like water. How the time ran and he felt stuck. It’s a calm and quick, but not surprising, realization of how Hyungwon doesn’t know what day it is. “Just peachy,” he mutters as he reaches for a carton of peach ice tea.

 

He feels irrationally guilty over having Hoseok there—Hyungwon knows he had a long shift and should probably be in bed by now, and not in a Goddamn grocery store smelling like sweat and grease. Working in fast food has to be exhausting. Hoseok looks tired, but with pale cheeks. Tired, but strangely happy. Hyungwon doesn’t get him. He is deadly tired after a trip to the library, or a corner store, or after anything, that is. It’s probably an unconventional personality trait.

 

But it’s night, somewhere between one and two, and it’s when Hyungwon feels the most lonely and the most alive simultaneously. The suburbs feel like ghost towns and the downtown is throbbing like a hungry heart. The grocery store, open twenty-four seven, falls right in the middle of both. It’s where they meet, in the middle.

 

It’s easy to talk to Hoseok, especially considering how God-awful Hyungwon is at talking and carrying conversations. That’s the cost that comes from isolating himself and being painfully shy. Or something. It doesn’t matter. The night doesn’t care.

 

The lights keep flickering, and it feels like it has a deeper meaning but of course, it doesn't have one. It’s just broken lights. Something unsettling twists in his stomach and Hoseok talks, but it turns into static in his ears. Snap out of it, he pinches the thin skin of his wrist. He’s sleep deprived. Stores like ghost towns and abandoned houses don’t help. Hoseok voice mixes in with the ice tea sloshing in the cardboard container, creating a tune Hyungwon wishes he wouldn’t adore, but does.

 

“—and of course, he yells at me. What a fucking moron, he should know better. And then mom calls after me, but I am driving already and can’t pick up. No one’s surprised anymore, you know. She says he’s sorry but he doesn’t have the balls to tell me himself, so I guess it doesn’t matter—”

  
  


 

They end up sitting inside Hoseok’s car. Hyungwon with his peach ice tea and Hoseok with his Sprite, a crinkling bag of crisps between them. It smells a bit stuffy in there but it’s more comforting than anything.

 

“I’m tired,” Hyungwon mumbles. It’s dark. A street lamp or two is shining light on the asphalt but none of the rays hit them, or the metal of the car.

 

”When aren’t you tired?” Hoseok sounds awfully affectionate as he says this. Hyungwon shrugs his shoulders with his mouth in a lazy grin, looking out of the window towards the lot that stretches out for meters and meters more.

 

“Fair point,” Hyungwon twists open the cork of his tea, lifting it to his lips to take a sip. The obnoxious taste of sweet sugar pushes through, coming out on top, and Hyungwon knows his mouth will feel numb afterwards. He wants to speak, say something important, something with weight but his mind is buzzing with absence.

 

“Can I come over?” He finds himself saying. He doesn’t want to sneak back into his house past his mom sleeping, and despite the fact that she probably won’t even notice, Hyungwon doesn’t want to risk it. He’s too tired of arguing. Sure, he’s of age now but it doesn’t change how she would rather have him inside doing dishes and smoking pot with her. Hyungwon doesn’t want to get high with his mother, fuck no. Being around her is enough to make his lungs feel stuffed with cotton or newspaper anyway.

 

“I have to get up early tomorrow,” Hoseok sighs, reaching into the bag of crisps and the sound it makes echoes in the car, and Hyungwon wants to turn it off but—he can’t, it’s not a radio. “But you’ll sleep past me waking up anyway, so feel free. You can borrow something from me if you don’t wanna go pick up your stuff.”

 

Hyungwon looks down to his lap and smiles. He thinks of turning towards Hoseok and kissing him, he thinks of curling up into his bed in his t-shirt that smells like him, and he feels a bit nauseous but it could be the butterflies. He reaches out to turn on the radio to cover the anxious kicks of his heart.

 

“Thanks,” he mumbles. It’d be easier to say things aloud, to have words, but he doesn’t—it’s just messy, sticky feelings. He swallows another mouthful of ice tea. It tastes like sugar. Still, it tastes like sugar. Of course, of course.

 

Hoseok hums along to the song playing on the radio, a song Hyungwon doesn’t recognize. The not-silence silence is comfortable and nice. It’s just nice. Hoseok is so nice. He wants to tell him this, but it feels like that if he does so, he’d ruin everything. If he really focused on the feeling, he’d know that it’s rather like he’s done something terrible already, but Hyungwon chooses to concentrate on Hoseok’s voice instead.  

  
  
  
  


 

**And in the middle.**

 

The mattress of Hoseok’s, in his crappy apartment, almost identical to tens of others in the building, is soft and wide enough for them both to fit in it. He should shut his eyes and let waves of exhaustion devour him finally, but Hoseok’s chest is rising so softly, peacefully and something keeps breaking beneath Hyungwon’s sternum. It’s ridiculous to stare at him like a creep as he’s sleeping away the soon rising sun.

 

Hyungwon wants to reach towards the light and let it warm up his bones but he doesn’t bother to. Instead he snuggles closer to Hoseok’s side and presses his face against his shirt. He can hear the calm beats of his heart.

 

This could possibly be the safest he’s ever felt. It’s not like Hyungwon will say it aloud (—and ruin everything by doing so.)

  
  
  
  


 

**Two.**

 

Anxious and hollow, but strangely at ease, Hyungwon looks at Hoseok with tired eyes. The purple LED light makes him appear alienish, looking like a Hoseok that’s not really Hoseok, but he is still beautiful, still so handsome, and Hyungwon still wants to kiss him. He swings his feet, careful not to bash them in to the washing machine he’s sitting on top of. It’s not running, of course.

 

The washing machine in Hoseok’s place is broken, and of course boys like them have to wash clothes during the night, but at least they won’t be disturbed by other people. Hyungwon is wearing a t-shirt that’s not his and it smells like home.

 

“Come closer,” Hyungwon tells him. It doesn’t matter. It’s a sleepy laundromat, open twenty-four seven, and they’re awake when the suburbs sleep and the downtown breathes. Hoseok looks at him with that curious look in his round eyes, getting up from the prussian blue plastic chair. Perhaps the both of them are asleep and this is a dream. Things feel, and look, hazy but Hyungwon doesn’t mind.

 

He knows Hoseok’s cheeks flush when he’s tired. It’s a rosy red shade that covers the apples of his cheeks and spread down towards his jawbone, makes him look ruined. He is looking at Hyungwon with a face he doesn’t understand but he knows the flush has to be of exhaustion. It normally doesn’t colour the tips of his ears, though.

 

A part of Hyungwon wants to reach out to him and get his hands on him, ruin him inside out, mostly because that’s the tragedy he is as a person. But instead of doing this, Hyungwon just studies him with glassy eyes until Hoseok is fidgeting, as if expecting for something to happen. It just feels like nothing ever happens.

 

“Closer,” Hyungwon says but it comes out as a whisper. He spreads his legs to make room for Hoseok to stand against the tall washing machine. Hyungwon wants to lift his hand and cover his chin and neck with his palm, self conscious of the way how Hoseok is looking at him from a lower angle. He always stands higher than him, being a lanky, sickly limbed manboy, but not like this. But it’s as if making a wrong move would send everything into a chaos.

 

Although chaos is something Hyungwon knows. Familiar, stern, like the backs of his hands. He puts his palm on Hoseok’s cheek instead, and as he leans into the touch, something sweeps inside his stomach. What a wonderful man.

 

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” Hyungwon warns him. It’s not him who should be carrying warnings but Hoseok. Hoseok and his stupid, attractive face and strong arms, and most importantly, the kindest heart Hyungwon is terrified of breaking. That’s way too embarrassing to admit aloud. The fear of it.

 

“Okay,” Hoseok says, his gaze never flickering away from Hyungwon’s face. Embarrassment creeps up along his spine but he refuses to give in to it, heart beating away somewhere up his throat. It shouldn’t be such a big of a deal.

 

Yeah, maybe he does love him, but Hyungwon doesn’t want to think about it so he leans forward. Hoseok’s mouth meets his in the middle.

 

There’s nothing delicate or romantic in the way Hoseok kisses him. It’s rather desperate and Hyungwon is convinced Hoseok can hear the beating of his heart in the quiet of the laundromat. Someone could walk past the vast windows displaying everything to the street but frankly, Hyungwon doesn’t really care about it. Not right now. Hoseok’s mouth is hot and wet against his, tasting a bit stale but everyone he kisses tastes the same anyway.

 

It’s the smell that makes it different, the warmth of Hoseok hands that hold him by the waist, both grounding and demanding. He could crush Hyungwon’s lithe bones but he won’t, he knows, but there’s something really fascinating in the idea.  

 

Hoseok’s warm tongue laps against his lower lip before he pulls on it with gentle grip of his teeth, making Hyungwon exhale sharply. He sneaks his hands into Hoseok’s black hair, caressing his fingers through his strands in the manner of a lover. As if this was something more than just two best friends, two whatever-lost-in-life-cases kissing in a laundromat. As if it was a some bigger than life scenario, a hit and run, take it or leave it.

 

Hyungwon pulls back enough to rest his forehead against Hoseok’s, eyes closed—not that he’s afraid, but so he can pretend it to be a dream for a second and not deal with the mundane consequences of real life. He breathes carefully, as if not to disturb the air around him, or Hoseok.

 

“I like you a lot,” Hoseok whispers. It sounds raw and casual in the same time, like being split open but still only bleeding through the stitches.

 

“As a friend.” Hyungwon completes the sentence for him. Feelings are sticky. Difficult. It’s too hard and his heart is kicking anxiously, hungrily.

 

“Well, yeah. But more too. Is that okay with you?”

 

Hyungwon is silent, careful not to open his eyes. Of course it’s okay. It’s not a surprise, either, but he’s so tired, so he keeps quiet, exhaling shakily.

 

“It’s fine if you don’t like me,” Hoseok says, leaning closer to press a soft kiss on his lips but it’s nothing more than a peck. Hyungwon wraps his legs around his middle not to let him step back, opening his eyes. He’s still coloured in odd shades caused by the fluorescent lights but the rosy blush on his cheeks is so vivid. Hyungwon wants to take a picture, to paint him or something as tasteless just to make a point out of it. Fucked that he can’t paint for shit and he has smashed the back of his phone.

 

Lips feeling sorta numb, mostly weird—like drinking too much of something sugary—and Hyungwon opens his mouth.

 

“I keep thinking about sleeping with you, like, the both meanings of that. And kissing you,” he doesn’t bother to have an ounce of shame in his voice. “But you’re my best friend. To be honest, I don’t know how that changes anything and I’m not sure what I’m talking about. I’m really tired.”

He lets out a little sigh, looking down at his lap again. Even without saying these things, without having this conversation, Hyungwon knows he loves Hoseok and Hoseok loves him. In some way, at least, and wickedly, at best. It’d be great to say things that make sense. It’d be great to feel awake.

 

“You’re always tired, silly,” Hoseok smiles shortly. It seems like they’re always repeating the same things. “I’d sleep with you.”

 

“You would? Even though I’m… like this. Dirty, you know,” Hyungwon makes a pained face, “Mom would lose her shit.”

 

“She shouldn’t have anything to do with this, with us. She’s just a control freak. And I don’t mind that you’re dirty, although I wish you would quit smoking, to be honest.

 

“I wish that too, but it’s easier not to,” Hyungwon chuckles. Like it’s easier not being in love. “And she’s insane. It’s in the blood.”

 

“You’ll manage,” Hoseok squeezes his side as he says this.

 

“You too.” It’s not a feigned one, the smile Hyungwon offers Hoseok. He loosens the hold of his legs around him, giving him an opportunity to move but Hoseok doesn’t step back. He tries to find words to say but as always, Hyungwon keeps sitting there with nothing of substance to share.

 

“I like you a lot too,” Hyungwon says after a moment of silence, like admitting a defeat.

 

“I know.”

 

“Smug bastard.”

 

It’s easy to say _I like you and I want to have sex with you._ Mostly because it doesn’t have to mean much, especially if they don’t think about the implications of it. It’s not vulnerable. It’s not rolling on your back and exposing the soft of your belly. It’s not risky and therefore, saying it aloud won’t ruin everything. Hyungwon just wishes he wouldn’t feel like everything is about to fall apart each second.

 

It’s easy to blame his fuck up of a mother, though, and find scapegoats everywhere. Hoseok most likely knows this. Hyungwon builds worlds inside his mind, that’s what he does, refusing to look the real world in the eyes. Terrified of ending up like his mom even though he still, evidently, does love her. Love is like that—impossible.

 

A lot like Hoseok. Shit, the sentimentality is making the world twirl around him, tremble and shake. Hyungwon represses a shudder creeping up his spine.

 

”I don’t know,” Hyungwon mutters when the silence gets too loud, ”Don’t know shit. Can we talk about this some other time?”

 

”Sure,” Hoseok shrugs his shoulders.

 

The truth is that Hyungwon doesn’t wanna lose him—and he doubts he will. It’s hard to imagine. He wishes they could just fuck off to another place, a seaside town or New York, somewhere that isn’t this. A parallel universe where Hoseok isn’t stuck in shitty jobs to afford his shitty apartment and where Hyungwon wouldn’t find each thing impossibly complex and hollow in the same time. He needs a smoke.

 

“But it’s gonna be fine,” Hyungwon says, looking past Hoseok onto the streets behind the window. For sure it’s going to be okay but he doesn’t know when. Eventually, yeah.

 

“Hope so,” Hoseok sounds a little sad as he says this but Hyungwon pretends not to catch the glimpse of misery in his tone.

 

Life’s dull and boring, lacking substance. He’s stuck in time and lost in the night hours but Hyungwon will find a way out, and this is because he always does. Hoseok can be a liability or some company. It doesn’t make much difference in the long run even if Hyungwon adores him in his own sick way, or if it’s love in the most mundane and unsurprising manner.

 

It matters the most that he is there. Hyungwon ushers him off and hops down to the ground from the washing machine.

 

“I think your clothes are ready,” he nods towards the machine that’s still running. Hoseok looks at him with a curious expression, still looking a little coy. He’s impossibly handsome. Hyungwon swallows and smiles at him.

 

“I’m going for a smoke, sorry,” he says and doesn’t drop the smile from his face. Hoseok pats his back with his strong palm but Hyungwon doesn’t wither.

 

It’s colder on the outside but he feels at peace. Or maybe peace isn’t a good word, but the sky is soon about to light up in orange and red, and eventually, Hyungwon’s going to fix everything. (He can’t fix anything.)

 

Someone hollers something drunkenly at him, but all he does is ignore it and pull out his pack from the pocket of his jeans and shove a cigarette between his lips. He glances over his shoulder to watch Hoseok fiddle with the washing machine and shove wet clothes into a blue IKEA bag. 

 

Some of the lights flicker. Hyungwon doesn’t know which ones. And when he keeps looking at him, his heart keeps kicking; anxious and ravished by hunger and want. Hyungwon tells his heart to calm down but it doesn’t listen. Stubborn, foolish heart. If he could, Hyungwon would probably rip it out but he clearly cannot do that, so instead he settles on letting it rage underneath his chest.

 

It’s rather easy and surprisingly comforting. But still the chaos is present, still it feels like the sky is going to fall apart but only to reveal another sky, so Hyungwon turns his head to look at it. All meanwhile he was busy looking at Hoseok, the sky was starting to brighten. Now it’s orange. Now it’s like peaches.

 

He hears the door open, the tone of Hoseok’s voice saying something. Now it’s burning. The sky, of course. And maybe his heart, too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! i will die for kudos & comments so please consider leaving them. cheers


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